We are no different today even if we think we are "Highly evolved" in our thinking. So why do we condeam the attitudes of people of 150 years ago when we haven't over come those same attitudes today?
It is also the nature of man to develope attutides when you become educated. Example when you burn your finger, you learn not to touch the stove.
What part of Racism can be attributed to actions taken by politicians for political purposes?
Do you think that racism was in any way lessened by the attempts of the abolishionist, like John Brown, to instigate race rebellions against southern slave owners?
Do you think that race relations were improved by Lincolns attempt to foster the same thing with his Emancipation Proclamination?
Do you think that Relationships between White and Blacks were in any way improved by the useage of Black Union soldiers?
Or the political repressions of the Republican politicians and their maintaining their power by the use of the black voting block during reconstruction?
The southern when solidly Democrat politically, for over 100 years, because of these things. This still effects our politics with some "Yellow Dog" democrats today. They vote Democrat because their parents and Grandparents voted Democrat. These are all Racist attitudes that were the results of the American Civil War and NOT from the practise of Slavery before the War. Jim Crowe laws were a reaction to most of those actions. Poll Taxes were a reaction to the buying of votes to influence elections. Were the Blacks the targets of such things as Poll Taxes? Yes they were. But they were also the easy target to be bought with a bottle of whiskey.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That applies equally as well to Human interaction as well as it does to Physics.
We tend to NOT divide these causes and effects reactions into their proper order and tend to say well the South was racist before the war, so they remained racist after the war. I don't think that is true. I think the South particularly the Blacks are far more racist today. There are too many instances where the southerner and his slave existed together in harmony, attended church and other social function together. Yes, there were barriers. That was the system. That is the triblism of man's nature. But is tribalism and racism the same thing? They can be same thing, but it does not necessarily have to be.
In my opinion todays Racism was to a large part the result of of the usage of Blacks against the White by Northern politicians for their own political purposes. This is even carry forward to the political policies of our present time.